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“Clark, George.”
    Death, despair, and destruction!
I would have been better off not knowing.
    Don’t ask how our worthy secretarial pool made up lists of this kind, but it sure wasn’t alphabetically. Obviously, someone in the school office hated me, too. Ten boys were listed under “Cabin F,” one being yours truly and four being relatively benign characters. The other five, namely Sam Toselli, Jason Barton, Gabriel Arno, DrewLewis, and Tim Simpson, weren’t the least bit benign. In fact, one could only have described Them as demons from hell. I looked over at Them huddled around the flagpole. The Bruise Brothers. Five apes in captivity. Guerrillas with buzz cuts, standing around in royal blue team jackets and dark sunglasses. Probably grunting at one another.
    They were the bane of my existence … football’s biggest eyesores … and beginning today … my new roommates.

Chapter 4
    I can remember when Mr. Caruso, our misguided gym teacher, wanted
me
to join the football team, I guess laboring under the assumption that having all my bones broken would somehow raise my testosterone level and trigger a growth spurt. Or as Mr. Caruso put it,
grow me up fast
. I never took his advice. I’m fundamentally opposed to any sport that gives people who hate your guts permission to hit you. I suppose it’s a survival instinct.
    Anyway, They must have felt my eyes on Them because all of a sudden They stopped talking and turned in unison to look at me. I turned, too, farther than I had to, so that I was now looking over Anita’s shoulder, and said, “So. Tell me. Who’s in your cabin?”
    Anita rattled off the names. “Monica-Gibbons-I-Don’t-Know-Her, Suzanne-Holderman-I-Don’t-Know-Her, Meredith-Brown-She’s-Okay-I-Guess, Claire-Seifert-I-Don’t-Know-Her …” She continued reading the list in silence, grimacing a little when she got to the end. “No-bodytoo bad.” She wadded up the sheet and stuffed it in her pocket. “Or, at least, only one loser.”
    â€œAnd who might the loser be?” I asked politely, though truthfully I wasn’t all that interested. I was watching the Bruise Brothers out of the corner of my eye, looking my way still and talking again. I thought I caught the gist of Their conversation when Drew Lewis pointed at me, and they all laughed.
    â€œDoes the name Allison Picone ring any bells with you?”
    Allison Picone!
Allison Picone and the word
loser
uttered in the same breath? Anita had my attention now, in the form of a bitter glare of indignation. Allison Picone was the only girl I’d ever loved! The collection of photographs inside my closet door were almost entirely of Allison, and they dated all the way back to the second grade. Granted, many of them were taken of her in full costume at assorted Halloween parades, and only I could spot her with the naked eye. But I’d become kind of an expert at it, and one day Allison Picone was going to fall madly in love with me. Right after I’d finished saving her life, of course. I’d worked that out in my mind a hundred different ways.
    â€œIf you could see the look on your face!” Anita jabbed me rather hard with her elbow. “I was only kidding! I just wanted to see if you were listening. You seemed sort of engrossed.” She looked at the Bruise Brothers. “Don’t tell me you got stuck with
them
.”
    I nodded miserably.
    â€œThat’s not good, George. They’re going to torture you.”
    I nodded again, even more miserably.
    â€œWell, why didn’t you make yourself sick the way I told you to?”
    â€œI
tried
to,” I said. “It didn’t
work
!”
    â€œYour stomach must be made of steel then. I can’t tell you how many times it worked for me.”
    â€œFine,” I snapped. “Don’t tell me.”
    We sat there without saying anything for a while, until Anita